Electronic components and circuits continue to benefit from increases in technology that have resulted in decreased cost of manufacturing and continued miniturization of such components, which is making it easier and more inexpensive to incorporate simple electronic circuits and applications even in products that are generally considered disposable.
Recordable and Playback Function for Foldable Products.
Currently, as an example, it is not uncommon to find greeting cards including a small electronic device for playing audio, the device activated by opening the card. The components of the device are generally secured on one side of the card, and an actuator portion is secured across a fold from the one side to a second side. The actuator portion has a fold formed therein so that, when the card is closed, the portion on the one side moves to an “off” position, yet opening of the card straightens the actuator portion and pulls the same to an “on” position; thus, activating the device to play the pre-recorded or newly recorded audio. In other embodiments, a button may be depressed or actuated in order to activate playback and/or recording, if capable of such. This function enables people to add a voice or sound memory to any product.
Many greeting cards are clearly not personal to the recipient. For instance, the commercial airline company Southwest Airlines provides customers enrolled in the company's frequent flier program with a greeting card on their birthday. As another example, State Farm Insurance has traditionally done the same. However, without anything more than a clearly pre-printed message and no real signature, the impact of such an impersonal card is diminished.
Greeting cards from friends and relatives typically convey a greater sense of personalization, as well as a greater sense of fun and enjoyment. Accordingly, cards that include the above described audio-playback circuit are found desirable. The giver of such greeting cards will also spend more time and effort in selecting a card that is appropriate to the relationship between the giver and the recipient, considering a number of features including the pre-printed message, the artwork or theme, which may be humorous or emotionally touching, as examples, as well as the actual message for any card including the above-described audio playback.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,761,836, to Dawson, discloses a “card” as a “presentation vehicle” for a gift or article. A slot is provided in the card for receiving the article so that insertion of the article opens a circuit, and removal of the article closes the circuit to activate audio playback of a message. The card also operates as described above so that folding two portions also opens the circuit to de-activate the playback.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,387,108, and 5,577,918 are related patents to Crowell that disclose a variety of designs that enable a user to record a personalized audio message and play the same when activated. In the disclosed designs, however, it is considered an important feature that the device allow recording and re-recording of the audio message. It is often impossible to make the recording more permanent for keepsake purposes.
One drawback to the above-type of greeting cards is the fact that the record and/or playback function is either built into the product or it is not. Thus, there has been a need in the industry for an add-on apparatus to a conventional greeting card or other folding item or product, such as a book, journal, box cover, or the like, that allows a purchaser of the product to add an audio recording and playback system, after-the-fact, to such pre-existing products.
USB Connection and Storage Functionality.
In addition to the above, USB storage devices are now well known in the art, are well established, and becoming more readily available in a multitude of storage capacities, colors, shapes, and sizes, and at increasing diminishing costs. USB storage devices can be used simply to store data, and act like a “mini” hard drive. Or, increasingly, they are being paired with multimedia devices, such as MP3 and/or MPEG players, to enable audio storage and playback of audio, still images, and video content. USB devices themselves are typically just used to transfer or store information. More sophisticated and expensive MP3 and MPEG players are typically sold and used as stand-alone multimedia devices that allow users to carry multimedia content with them in a portable and retrievable fashion.
Photo Books or Picture Albums.
Traditional photobooks and picture albums have been around for many years and are, in fact, with the advent of online and digital photo storage and easy publishing and access to personal video clip on publishing websites, such as YouTube®, becoming more and more anachronistic. However, photobooks and photoalbums still offer a more personalized viewing experience and will likely remain a staple product on the living room or den shelves or coffee tables of families for many years to come, because they allow and provide a mutual viewing and bonding experience that can only be shared by people actually sitting down together and reminiscing about fun and memorable times with family and friends.
Despite the value of photobooks and picture albums, there is the risk that such products will become obsolete and seen as less desirable by future generations. For this reason, and many others, there is a need in the marketplace to marry traditional products, such as photobooks and picture albums with some newer technologies that are finally getting to the point at which they can be combined in an economical and heretofore unknown manner.
Adapting and modifying the technologies, systems, methods, and devices described above also leads to interesting and new combinations of existing, conventional products with the multimedia capabilities of the circuits and the personalized recording and playback technologies described herein.
Additionally, there has been and continues to be a need for an improved apparatus that incorporates audio and visual media into photo books and other devices, building a bridge between old and current media formats into one product and into a product that can be easily customized and personalized by the user or purchaser of the product.
Yet further, gift cards are another type of product that can benefit from the combinations of technologies and techniques described herein. Often, a gift card is the gift of choice (and laziness) in today's busy and impersonal world. In a prior application, Applicant described and disclosed a “Talking Envelope” that offered a recordable gift card holder, that enabled a gift card purchaser to personalize the gift card by recording a personalized message that could be stored in or on the envelop of the gift card for later playback by the recipient of the gift card.
In another prior application, Applicant disclosed the use of the “Talking Paper” concept, which enabled similar personalized recording and playback devices to be added to any product or container, such as a conventional book, an ornament, a product box, including a pizza deliver box or an express mail envelop or box, and many other similar items in which it may desirable for the sender or seller of the product to include a personalized or pre-recorded message, at low cost and expense, to the product being sold.
With the addition of USB and similar data ports and the use of data storage devices that are becoming smaller, flatter, and cheaper, it is now possible to expand the original concepts of the talking envelope and talking paper to full-multimedia recording, storage, and playback and build such technology into existing products that heretofore were not deemed to be related to or combinable with such technologies, as will be described herein.